Love and Other Sins

Book excerpt: Mina's life is going according to plan; she's acing AP Calc and is perfectly content with her nonexistent social life. Though only a high school junior, Mina knows time is an investment, and she's putting all her capital into academics. Oliver, a child abuse survivor who grew up in the foster care system, is ready to burn down his old life and start from scratch-complete with a new name and emancipation papers-in L.A. When the two are thrown together through circumstance and develop an unexpected connection, they discover how hard it is to keep the past in the past. Love and Other Sins is an emotional coming-of-age YA drama about family, love, violence, and the residue of abuse set against the backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles. When Mina meets Oliver, you'll remember your own first love and just how fast it swept you under. What were the bonds that bound us? Was it purely physical attraction? Circumstance? Or perhaps it was a mutual gravitation toward inevitable pain. "There was something about her-her eyes. Well, not so much her eyes, physically, but more like what they said about her: she had this look-a kind of restless intensity." "It was intimate . . . a strange and beautiful feeling. We were breathing life into each other." Love and Other Sins is a moving story about what it means to be young and vulnerable in today's society. This young adult romance will make you laugh and cry and give you hope for tomorrow because there are people like Mina and Oliver who refuse to let themselves be defined by their pasts or circumstances. If you love reading books like Looking for Alaska or Thirteen Reasons Why, then this is definitely for you. Content warning: sexual assault, recollections of child abuse, discussions of suicidal thoughts, and mention of miscarriage.